PHILIPSBURG — United People’s party-leader Rolando Brison launched a vicious attack veteran MP Sarah Wescot-Williams by holding her responsible for the Bearing Point-controversy and by labeling her track record as “forty years of political failure.” Brison furthermore stated in a press release that the support for the Democratic Party is dwindling and that “recent polls” estimate that party will win just one seat in the upcoming elections. Brison did not stop there: “Whether it was the INSO fiasco, Mullet Bay and the situation with ENNIA or the Shipyard NV debts, we constantly see the fingerprints of DP cohorts around…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — The fall of the Rutte IV-cabinet “underscores the risk of being dependent on a nation that does not have its own house in order, despite all its unlimited financial and other resources and global geo-political significance and influence,” Independent MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten writes in a press release that calls for a meeting to discuss the situation with Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs after the summer recess. MP Heyliger-Marten refers to the “underlying reasons” for the collapse of the last two Dutch governments: the child allowance scandal and the failure to agree on an immigration policy. “Significant and meaningful constitutional…
Cdr. Bud Slabbaert floated an interesting concept in a column that describes the benefits of business incubators. Incubators have a strong resemblance with the business centers that were all the rage in the eighties in the Netherlands. It is still a valid concept though: it focuses on creating jobs by building businesses, rather than on teaching job seekers how to find meaningful employment. A brilliant idea is not necessarily the key to building a successful business. Just think about what happened to the innovative electrical bicycle-manufacturer Van Moof in the Netherlands. The idea was good, the execution lousy and the…
PHILIPSBURG — Implementing the justice function book will cost the government more than 40 million guilders ($22.3 million) this year, it appears from a press release issued by the Ministry of Justice. The agreement Minister Anna Richardson reached with the unions is still subject to approval by the Council of Ministers. Minister Richardson negotiated the agreement with the NAPB, ABVO and WICSU/PSU unions and the Committee of Civil Servants Union (CCSU) as well as with management and employees of her ministry. According to the press release, the unions “collaborated closely” with the minister about the final review of the legal…
PHILIPSBURG — Wndward Roads deal with the Public Prosecution in the Larimar corruption case is finally coming to fruition. The Larimar-trial examined the activities of several companies, among them Windward Roads, that paid bribes to offshore entities and that ended up in the pockets of former politicians Theo Heyliger. At the trial, Windward Roads promised to execute $2 million worth of projects on the island to compensate for its wrongdoings. The public prosecutor’s office announced in a recent press release that it has agreed to allow Windward Roads to complete work on the Dutch Quarter sewage pump station and the…
PHILIPSBURG — General Pension Fund APS acquired Mary’s Fancy and the De Castro properties on L.B. Scott Road in 2014 for 4.4 million guilders ($2,458,000) with the intention to develop them for commercial use. Unfortunately, the conditions for further development soon worsened to a point where APS had to put the project on hold. According to the 2020 annual report the original projection was to complete the project by the third quarter of 2022. Renovating the monuments at Mary’s Fancy are part of the project. APS intended (and still intends) to renovate the plantation house, the boiling house, the servants…
WILLEMSTAD — Curacao wants to become a dominant player in the market of renewable energy, NOS-correspondent Dick Drayer reports, but the apparent plans to build windmill parks off the North coast of Curacao quickly met with an avalanche of criticism. What is the plan exactly? A floating park of windmills that produces 5 to 6 gigawatt of electricity by 2035, more than enough to cover Curacao’s daily energy needs of 130 megawatt. The plan is to convert the surplus of energy into hydrogen and to export it in the region or even to the Netherlands. The Dutch research vessel Fugro…
The intention to appoint two full-time directors at the Cadastre next to the managing director that is already in place has raised serious concerns with at least one Member of Parliament, the formidable Grisha Heyliger-Marten (independent). The MP says that these appointments will cut deeply into the Cadastre’s net results. Others, like former director Clemens Roos, offer a different perspective: a financial director who reports directly to the supervisory board is a recipe for disaster. Two captains on one ship is never a good idea. The question nobody has asked so far is why the Cadastre sees the need…
PHILIPSBURG — Independent MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten want Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion to put the recruitment of a full-time Chief Financial Officer and a Chief Operations Officer at the Cadastre on hold. The MP states in a press release that these appointments would put a serious dent in the Cadastre’s net result. On April 3, MP Heyliger-Marten sent a letter to Minister Ardwell via the president of parliament, Siddharth Bijlani, asking for information about the Cadastre based on article 14.2 of the institution’s articles of incorporation. On May 23, parliament received the requested information about the Cadastre’s administration and its…
By Hilbert Haar I have written this more than once but this seems an opportune moment to repeat it: freedom ends where it intrudes upon the freedom of others. Unfortunately, the prime ministers of St. Maarten, Curacao and Aruba seem to have made it their business to intrude upon the freedom of their citizens by refusing to make marriage between partners of the same sex possible. St. Maarten and Curacao don’t even abide by a ruling of the European Human Rights Court that says that countries that prohibit same sex marriages have to offer an alternative like a legally regulated…
